London — Bob Diamond, a financial heavy hitter when he ran Barclays, is coming back to the City of London. His latest venture plays in the minor leagues. Diamond’s investment firm is set to take control of Panmure Gordon & Company, a stockbroker that focuses on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), where the brokers do much of the regulating and many of Britain’s riskiest listed companies trade. The former banking titan, forced out of Barclays five years ago in the wake of the Libor (London interbank offered rate) scandal, has seen his bid to build a pan-African bank falter. Now Atlas Merchant Capital, which Diamond founded, plans to turn Panmure Gordon into a bigger, boutique investment bank, which may prove challenging as stockbrokers struggle and Brexit looms. "What Panmure Gordon needs is stable ownership and some magic dust, some oomph," said Tim Linacre, who left as the company’s CEO in 2012. Jain and Corzine It is unusual for a former top executive to re-emerge at a smalle...
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